Who Knows?
by planet p
Summary: It’s a bit odd, and AU. I couldn’t think of anything to write, so I wrote this.


**Who Knows?** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Notes** AU, in a big, big way! Kind of random, Q&A minus any A. Just me trying to figure something out, clear something up. Maybe you could call it reflective?

I kind of wanted to write something else – about a completely different character – but it isn't working. =(

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He did not think he could abide those old protocols now. No, he was sure of it, sure he could not. Now, he slept, and dreamt. He'd even learnt to read and write English, and to talk. Sometimes, even, he found himself hard-pressed to stop talking. He did like to talk, though what he talked about did not always make sense, and sometimes the things he said upset him, but it was hard to stop saying them. It was like a habit, or the protocols – back then.

He was someone now, not the same someone, but someone nonetheless. That was something to be proud of, he supposed, an achievement of sorts. How happy Angelo would have been were he just able to be someone, anyone, but someone who was… more or less… unique, someone who was just himself. And, sometimes, he was – for a short while. But never for long, never for very long.

He was happy that he was someone, that he was himself, though he wasn't quite sure what that meant sometimes. He wasn't the first, that he knew, and maybe he wouldn't be the last.

Sometimes he thought he'd come because Bobby hadn't wanted to live anymore, after what he'd done, after all of the things that had changed, and hurt, because Bobby had always been easily hurt, and he thought that maybe even it had hurt even more because it had been Bobby who'd made things change, but then he could not change it back. Perhaps it had been a little bit like dying, he thought, but perhaps it hadn't just been Jimmy who'd died that day, perhaps it had been Jimmy and Bobby.

For so long, Jimmy had been Bobby's friend. For so long, that had remained the same, remained unchanged, constant. And then it had changed. At first, Jimmy had stopped being Bobby's friend, and then Jimmy had done something that Bobby could not forgive him for, nor live with, so he'd had to make Jimmy go away, as though he'd never been real, and then maybe he could pretend that what Jimmy had done hadn't been real either.

But it wasn't the right thing to do, and it didn't really collate with Bobby's history. Bobby had forgiven so many people so many things, after all, but he couldn't forgive what Jimmy had done. It hadn't even been that bad, really, Lyle thought. He could not understand Bobby, completely, though he supposed maybe he wasn't meant to, or maybe Bobby didn't want him to.

He knew that his sister, Miss Parker, thought that Bobby had killed Jimmy so that he could frame his father, Mr. Bowman, for his own murder, and run away from home, and that Dr. Raines, who, at the time, he'd been seeing for two years, had convinced him to go ahead with the plan as some sort of test, but it hadn't been that at all. In actuality, it had nothing to do with Raines at all, with wanting to prove himself, or with a pressing need to run away from home to be away from his abusive father and submissive mother. He'd just gotten angry.

Maybe, realistically, he should have seen it coming. Maybe he should have tried to curb it, but what could he do once it was done. Jimmy wasn't going to magically come back to life because he'd suddenly realised what he'd done, and was apologetic, and suddenly wished he could take it back.

That wasn't how life worked. Or maybe it had been a sign of things to come, a sign of the person he was supposed to be, or would eventually develop into, and nothing was supposed to have been done. Maybe he'd always supposed to have become this person. Maybe it was a lesson he was supposed to learn. Maybe, if he'd been his mother – either of his mothers, Elizabeth or Catherine – he would have believed this.

It wasn't that he didn't believe in lessons, or that a person could change, but he always liked to think that one of the greatest things that a person could learn was to be able to learn, to change, to be able to accept change, and that maybe things had been different in the past, and that they'd be different again in the future, but that that was okay, that learning and changing was okay, depending on what it was one was changing into.

Lyle couldn't be sure how many times he'd changed. He couldn't go back and pinpoint exact locations and times, much of the past was clouded and confusing and painful, and even if he could, he wouldn't want to go back through all of that in search of some lesson, some turning point, that might not even exist.

But sometimes, he had to go back. Sometimes, he had no choice. Sometimes, it hurt more not going back, not trying to find answers. Sometimes the truth was worth going back for, when he knew for certain that if he looked hard enough he would find it, or find something that would lead to it.

But sometimes he didn't need to go back to recognise the lesson, the turning point, a mistake made once, twice, repeated, over and over again. Sometimes, it was all to clear.

There, that was where you judged someone unfairly, that was where you took away what you had no right to take away, withheld what you had no right to withhold, because you thought you knew better, because you were _sure_ you knew better – you'd been through the same thing, the _exact same_ thing, after all! That was where you tripped up, where you made a horrible, horrible mistake. And maybe it would have ended for the worse, or maybe it would have ended for the better. You had no right! No right, at all! No one incident is exactly alike to another incident, after all! You know this, and you knew this then, but you weren't thinking about them, you were thinking about you, and how you were so afraid, and so sure – that you knew better! You disgusting hypocrite!

Sometimes, he could just spot it, and he didn't need to go back to make it hurt, because it always hurt, and he always knew, always remembered, and he thought he'd never forgot, and never forgive himself, though that was the past, and it was not up to him to forgive, it was up to those he'd hurt. But what if they weren't around to forgive him? What if they didn't know everything, and he couldn't face up to telling them? What if it would hurt double, triple, if he did? What if that would mean he wouldn't be the person he'd been before, in the eyes of someone whose opinion meant everything to him? What if this was someone he could not hurt anymore, because when he hurt them, he hurt himself, he hurt everything he'd ever believed in, and more? What if admitting the truth meant the end of everything, for him? And maybe for them too? What should he do then?

In reflection, he realised that he had very little answers to anything, to any of life's questions, or dilemmas, and that he wasn't really altogether sure that he even wanted those answers, or wanted that choice. In fact, sometimes he was sure he didn't, but the choice was still there, and doing nothing would shoot him down as surely as doing something, depending on which way he went, what he chose to do.

Sometimes, he looked forward to the prospect of it being someone else's problem eventually, of no longer… existing, or being in control and able to affect change or non-change. But it always upset him, and saddened him.

And sometimes, he thought that if he could just be who his sister thought he was, then everything would have to get better. But everything was not good for anyone, and he knew that it was just ignorant wishful thinking.

Maybe the old protocols had been put in place for just that reason, and maybe they would have helped, for a little while, or for a long time, but he wasn't that person anymore, he wasn't in that situation anymore. After all, everyone had to grow up sometime. No one could escape that.

But maybe that was just the way it was meant to be. Who knew?

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